"Our company was bound on a long travel to Kirk-Yetholm, Roxburghshire, one of the few places in Scotland, although but one mile from the frontier of Northumberland, where the gipsies reside in any number. There we should meet with friends, and be safe from all molestation. It was late in the year to travel so far and into such a climate, but there was no help for it; and moreover, some of the Carews had a house there, to which Stanley said we should be welcome; and so it turned out. I believe Sinnamenta would rather that we had camped out of doors, even in that northern clime, so disinclined was she to be beholden to him or his friends, after what had happened, although she did not dare to say so. Poor Stanley imagined that, now we had removed from the neighbourhood of his rival, he might renew his suit with success; but the proud girl would not listen to him. She did not exactly pine after the man whose wiles she had so narrowly escaped, but her life seemed henceforth saddened. The domestic duties which had hitherto sat so lightly upon her, became burdensome, and she set about them languidly. The whole of the time we remained at Kirk-Yetholm, and it was many, many months, she never mentioned Massingberd Heath, but never ceased to think of him. It was fated that she was to be undeceived about that man too late."
[1] I am reminded by a friendly critic of the "suspicious coincidence" of a horse-shoe on the forehead, in the case of "Redgauntlet." I never think of Sir Massingberd without thinking of that worthy; and it has been a matter of doubt with me, whether Sir Walter Scott might not himself have seen the Squire of Fairburn and drawn him from the life--both as to mind and feature--in his famous novel.
"About a year after our departure from Fairburn, Sinnamenta and I had been to sell some baskets, the making of which was a great trade with us at that time, at Wooler, in Northumberland; and on our return from the fair that was being held there, we met a number of gentlemen driving home from shooting in the Cheviots. They went by very rapidly, yet not so fast but that I recognized one of their number; I had only to look at my little sister's cheeks to see that she had recognized him also. The very next day came Massingberd Heath to our camp, professing himself injured by our abrupt withdrawal from his society, volunteering his companionship as before, and reiterating his vows and promises to Sinnamenta. She expressed herself in such a manner as to lead us almost to fear she might be induced to elope with him; while he, upon his side, seemed prepared to sacrifice everything to obtain her: his very selfishness caused him, as it were, to forget himself; and I do believe, if it had been insisted upon, he would have had the banns published in Wooler Church, in the hearing of the fine friends with whom he was staying, and been married by the parson. However, he again proposed to go through the Cingari ceremony, and this time, <i>Morris and my father agreed to it</i>. Having acknowledged himself to be an adopted gipsy, Massingberd Heath was joined in wedlock to Sinnamenta Liversedge; the ordinary ceremonies were dispensed with, by command of Morris, the bride and bridegroom only pledging themselves to one another solemnly in the presence of the assembled tribe. It was then, since he could not purchase suitable presents in such an out-of-the-way district, that I received from that man's hand this shooting-flask, as a remembrance of that day; my uncle commanded me to accept it (although I vehemently disapproved of what had been done), and I therefore keep it now, when every other gift of that accursed man has long been committed to the flames. For my part, I could not understand this novel pliancy on the part of Morris and my father; while Sinnamenta, as I think, implicitly believed in her lover's protestation, that for her sake he would all his life be a wanderer like ourselves. That very day, however, he took her away southward, on his road to London.